Tag Archives: shore

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Shoreline Boulder and Meadow, Subalpine Lake

September 17, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Boulders, grasses, and trees along the shoreline of a subalpine lake, Yosemite National Park

Some aspects of landscape photography remind me, perhaps in a strange way, of spring skiing. In the spring there is still often plenty of snow, but the temperature swings between sub-freezing nights and warm days have some big effects on the snow. In the morning the re-frozen snow can be so hard that it is almost like trying to ski on a tilting ice rink, and you can easily find yourself skittering across the surface out of control. By late afternoon the warm temperatures melt the snow and can turn it into a slippery slush, and it can be like skiing on oatmeal. But at just the right moment, as the surface of the snow begins to soften but the lower layers are still firm, some of the best skiing possible can occur for a short period each day.

When photography in early or late light, I encounter something very similar — though with a bit of creativity it is possible to stretch things just a bit. Let’s take the afternoon, the time of day when I made this photograph of a simple scene near the outlet stream of a subalpine lake. I began my work a couple of hours before sunset, when the light was still clearly “daytime light.” The sun’s angle is higher, the shadows are more start, the light has a blue quality. As the evening approaches, there is a point at which the light seems to mellow and warm, the shadows lengthen and fill with a bit of reflected light… and almost everything begins to look beautiful. But at this point things change very quickly. I might find myself spotting a bit of light on a branch or a rock, and by the time I’m set up it has moved. While this time seems conducive to looking and contemplating, it is actually a time when I often have to work quickly before the “good light” is gone. This little scene, which is nothing all that special in objective term, was such a scene — a brief moment of warm light slanting through shoreline trees and across meadow grasses, and a few moments later the day ended.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Blue Hour, Point Lobos

July 31, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening “blue hour” light along the Pacific Ocean shoreline at Point Lobos State Reserve

I have been visiting Point Lobos for decades, beginning when I was a young child. Point Lobos was on the circuit of parks in the greater San Francisco Bay Area that my parents regularly visited, and back in those days my elementary school even took field trips there to investigate tide pools. I have continued to visit often since that time. You would think that by now I would know every nook and cranny of this place but, as is always the case, there is still more to see and to learn about it.

For example, although I’m positive I must have seen this line of rocks extending into the surf many times over the years, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I recognized it as a potential photographic subject and even then I did not immediately see its relationship to the further shoreline. On this mid-winter (my favorite time to visit Point Lobos!) day I shot many subjects before finding myself here in the evening shortly after sunset, when the world takes on a magical and rich blue tone and ocean fog was beginning to appear over the coast.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Big Sur Coast, Winter Light

July 11, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Rugged Big Sur coastal mountains in winter light recede into the distance

The entire Big Sur coast below Monterey, California is full of spectacular land- and seascapes, as the western edge of the continent meets the Pacific Ocean. Often as I drive the Pacific Coast Highway though this region I wonder at the improbability of the existence of the road along its length. (In fact, it is a challenge to keep it open, as there are frequent slides during winter months.)

While the region is almost entirely spectacular, things seem to become a degree wilder and bigger once I pass the inland town of Big Sur and head back out to the coast on the southward drive. Here in many places the road alternates between the edges of high ridges that drop precipitously into the sea and sections that follow along the very edge of the water. (I tend to prefer traveling south along this road, as the light is more likely to be the sort that I look for.) At this particular location, the nearby cliffs plunge into the ocean at an especially steep angle and the curve of the coastline provides extremely long views.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Rocky Shoreline, Fog, Big Sur

July 5, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Steep cliffs fall to the edge of the Pacific Ocean along the fog-shrouded Big Sur coastline

I left very early on this Fourth of July morning, while the streets were still nearly empty near my home, and headed south towards Monterey and the Big Sur coast. I watch weather forecasts carefully before going there this time of year. The most likely conditions are not my favorites for photography — either socked in with coastal for or else blue-sky clear. I’m looking for something in between in the summer, which ideally means that there is still some fog around but that the sun is poking through along the edges. The forecast today was one of those that is peculiar to California, with fog hugging the coast early but breaking up by midday and the temperatures in the inland areas, which are sometimes only a few miles from the foggy areas, rising into the nineties. Hoping to find that sun/fog boundary, I was willing to chance the holiday traffic, though I figured I might beat the worst of it by going there before “normal people” were awake, and then by returning at about the time the crowds would show up.

I hit fog in the Salinas Valley, which meant that the fog on the coast was likely to be a bit more obstinate about leaving than I had hoped. In fact, there was a low deck of fog perhaps only a few hundred feet above the ocean, with misty atmosphere below. This is not easy light to photograph, at least not for me, but I found a few places like this one where I could get a clear view of nearby subjects and include more distant subjects disappearing into the fog. I walked out on the bluff to find this spot, set up, and noticed that the fog was in motion, so I decided to wait, eventually spending perhaps 20 minutes waiting and watching for moments like this when the fog thinned just enough to barely reveal the further rocks and coast.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: shore

Shoreline Boulder and Meadow, Subalpine Lake

Blue Hour, Point Lobos

Big Sur Coast, Winter Light

Rocky Shoreline, Fog, Big Sur

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.